India & Ireland, film & more

Raavan

Like all those kids down in steamy Orlando right now queuing up and clamoring for another go on the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride, I also want to see Raavan several more times. So far, I’ve only seen the Hindi version once earlier this week. Tonight I get my wish and will see the Tamil Raavanan.

By only releasing one film every couple of years, the team at Madras Talkies ensure de facto oversized curiosity and expectation when they do finally turn over their latest creation to the viewing public, and they sure had me going, though I will confess that the too-short trailer gave me pause and had me wondering how I would react to this sylvan effort.

When you add to that how difficult it is to buy or rent Mani Sir’s earliest works, the resulting catalog of available films leaves many of us feeling like Ragini in that hut in the village, trying to lean under a bamboo pipe and capture the few drops of rainwater that might fall.

But Raavan has finally released, and there was more than enough there for me to wish go back to a second and third time and see what I may have missed initially. Almost all of the film is shot on location in forests, jungles, waterfalls and rivers, and as you watch it, try every so often to step back and imagine the placement of the cameras for a particular scene, plus the attendant crew around the actors, and it’s quite daunting to envision how challenging it was to make the shots that Santosh Sivan and V. Manikandan did.

And there are so many lush and exquisite scenes. As Beera and his hostage move from one place to another, we too sail over rocks, under leaves, and through the waterfalls. For many of us, going to the darkened theater to see a movie is not some intellectual exercise, it is a desire to sit perfectly still, eyes wide open and flee, going somewhere very different and, hopefully, experiencing something beautiful or revealing or moving on the trip.

Ragini is taken captive and on the run by the outlaw Beera (Abhishek Bachchan), and they are pursued by her husband Dev (Mr. Kandaswamy himself, Vikram Kennedy) and a team of cops. The ethereal Mrs. Rai Bachchan is dragged down rivers, over rocks and into caves by Beera and his men, but she never misses an opportunity to try to escape.

The light-eyed beauty – to whom many attribute an unflagging glacial quality – must be given credit here for what she was willing to do for her role, as the film soon evolves into a cinematic pan-India Iron Man triathlon. For any actor or technician ever aspiring to work with Mani Ratnam, it’s clear that in addition to whatever excellence at your métier you bring to the team, you must also be a good swimmer who is not afraid of heights or arduous treks through any an all sorts of muck.

Beera’s initial plan to quickly polish off Dev’s lovely bride falls apart as soon as he sees the tough stuff of which Ragini’s made and in the few minutes that A.R. Rahman’s Behene de swirls gently around us, we can see that this Raavan is falling hard for her while also trying to understand why he is reacting this way.

During the flashback to her life with Dev, in between shots of Ragini as a dance teacher and loving wife, Mani Ratnam gives us those little glimpses into a comfortable and contemporary Indian middle class home that have become one of his signatures. Maggi sauce and Nescafe jar aside, in the shots from Dev and Ragini’s kitchen I started having flashbacks to Kannathil Muthamittal and the very lovely home life of Indira and Thiruchelvan.

Never one to stoop to sleaze, in the shots of Rangini and Dev spooning and talking to each other’s images in a floor-to-ceiling mirror opposite their bed (in fact there are several walls of mirrors in the bedroom), Mani Sir maintains a certain air of reserve in the scene which tempers the actors’ sensuality.

For any coolness Aishwarya carries with her, Abhishek’s Beera has the earthy warmth to counter it. Even though he’s referred to as a brute, there’s a magnetic quality about him, underneath all the mud and sweat and glowering. Maybe it’s because of this, I didn’t find him as threatening as Mr. Bachchan’s first role with Mani Ratnam, as the hot-headed Lallan who would as easily slap around his pregnant wife as the men he is paid to intimidate.

Added as merry sidekick and guide is the (literally) flighty Sanjeevani Kumar, played by the counterintuitive choice (some might think) of one Mr. Govinda Ahuja, for whom I confess I have long carried a torch. He has a smaller but charming role as the tipsy, chatty guard at the forest entrance who is subsumed into Dev’s search party and he delights.

Vikram is mostly all silence and steely reserve, rock solid determined in his righteousness. His film hero background surges to the fore in the now famous battle between Beera and Dev when they indeed burn their bridges behind themselves. If I ever yearned for a director’s commentary track on a film, this for sure is one, as I would love to hear the crew talk about how they did that scene, and a host of others.

Nikhil Dwivedi and Ravi Kishen round out the cast and they are all as fine as one would expect in a Mani Ratnam film. Priyamani is lovely in her brief appearance as the headstrong younger sister to Beera.

The two rumors that circulated endlessly in the months and weeks before the film’s release were that Beera’s people are Naxals and the story is that of the Ram-Sita-Ravan from the Ramayan. During interviews prior to this opening day, the director and his cast were all equally circumspect and evasive when asked about these two points.

As in Dil Se, Mani Ratnam has chosen not to specifically name the place where the insurgency is taking place. And as for, the Ramayan question, well, Sanjeevani does seem to be able to flit effortlessly in a rather simian-like manner from ground to tree and onward, so you draw your own conclusions.

A.R. Rahman’s music this time does not have same huge, expansive emotional flourish of, say, Pachchai Nirameor the title song from Kannathil Muthamittal, but rather the songs seep into your bones, not unlike the fog so prevalent in Beera’s kingdom. After having finally seen the songs in the context of the film, Mujhe Behene De is my favorite, for the foreboding atmosphere of the song’s rhythm and the longing in Gulzar’s lyrics. Plus, lately I just can’t get enough of Karthik’s voice.

See it or skip it?

See it. It’s rare for a filmmaker to tell a story while encompassing so much beauty in so many of its components.

13 thoughts on “Raavan”

Am waiting for a DVD with subtitles too – Saw Raavanan before I saw Raavan and it was playing with subtitles in Bombay – Couldnt catch too much of the subtitles as was looking out for the visuals and acting.

But a lot of the lyrics of the songs have much more meaning and carry the story forward more than other movies – So have to watch it again

Catching a couple of clips of the songs on Youtube – I was shocked that the slow Ranjha Ranjha runs for a full two and a half minutes in the movie! And you catch a lot more when you watch the movie again – Like the exact moment when Veera falls in love (or shows it) etc

Agree with you – Abhishek wouldn’t risk lying in front of so many microphones and cameras

BTW Abhishek never lied about the stunt – He said he jumped against Mani Ratnams wishes, and there were a lot of people who jumped that day – He doesn’t know if the final shot chosen showed him jumping or not

Thanks for the pointer to your review. I never got to do a write-up of my own reactions to Raavanan, but I loved it enough to buy the DVD that’s out right now without the subtitles so I could see it again sooner, rather than wait for the subtitled one to appear.

I definitely agree with you in that – when time has passed – people will reassess their opinions of Raavan, favorably.

On the did-he-or-didn’t-he-dive question, I have to say NDTV ran a clip of him saying a couple of things in very rapid succession that had the effect of making him look like he was trying to extricate himself from something or other….in short he said that (1) the insurance people didn’t want them to do a lot of stunts, (2) him being who he is he wanted to do the dive and (3) the man who was his diving trainer did a dive and in the end, he, Abhi, didn’t know which shot was used in the film. For me, it’s that third comment that really muddies the waters (no pun intended) as to whether he did or did not, but again, I’d find it really hard to believe that anyone who exists side-by-side every day of his life with so many microphones and cameras would ever dare tell such a lie that could be easily disproved.

Am happily anticipating the release of a subtitled DVD of Raavanan and that of Raavan.

On the article you shared from TOI, thanks for the link. If it is true, that’s quite sad.

But also, it seems really incredible in this day and age, that Abhishek would risk saying something untrue like that during an interview and believe he would never be found out, which makes me somewhat sceptical that he’d take credit for something he didn’t do.

It would be so easy for a reporter to publish the audio of Abhi saying he did that dive. It will be interesting to see if more is written or talked about this in the media this week.

Joseph, thanks for the PFC link. Raavan certainly seems to have stirred up a variety of opinions. I had a rather animated discussion with a filmmaking friend, who argued vehemently against the film, especially Ragini’s choices and decisions.

Brown, thanks for sharing your thoughts. It’ll be interesting to see the numbers on Monday or so on how the film is faring at the box office. From one friend I have heard that the Tamil version is packing them in back in India.

Joseph, good to hear from you again after a while. As I was reading your comments about Abhishek I was recalling an interview that NDTV ran yesterday, wherein he basically said that with this role he had the freedom to do anything he wanted…Thanks for sharing the review from YouTube; it was interesting to hear. I’ll be putting up some thoughts on the Tamil version a little bit later.

Everything that could go wrong with the film goes wrong with raavan. Terrible acting story that falls apart and the only saving grace is the setting and obviously that doesn’t say much about the fulm. I personally feel that there is some arrogance on part of the filmmakers and actors to part this crap as art. Abhsihek bachchan is bloody awful and I walked out midway his hamming is unbearable. I really disagree with your opinion of watching the movie people would do themselves a huge favor by avoiding thus pretentious piece of crap.

Nice Review! I agree that while the imagery was lyrical and locales dazzling the film overall left me a bit underwhelmed.I’m as ardent a Mani fan as anyone but the feeling I got after watching ‘raavan’ was mostly ‘What it could’ve been’. The too main culprits in my view are:

1. Sreekar Prasad—The editor, whose notorious choppy editing took away any flow in the story.
2. I’m almost sad saying this—but ABhishek as just plain awful,hamming it up to high heavens.I understand ‘Wild Tribal Leader’ Beera and all but to allow AB Jr to go beserk like this is just plain inexcusable.I basically cringed every time AB started his hamming routine.

All that said I felt ‘raavan’ was an eminently watchable film and found myself completely drawn in right from the first shot. The Ramayan allegory doesn’t really work for me but I can understand how it might for some. The background score was spectacular and the Priyamani parts were the most powerful scenes in the film.

The Indian reviews have been especially harsh esp by Masand & Raja Sen but I think noted Film Critic Bahavan Somay said it best in here podcast you can watch here: